Rabbi helps others re-establish Jewish lifestyle

Published 7:00 pm, Friday, August 21, 2009

At 30 years old, the life of Rabbi Yosef Garcia was turned upside down by a casual conversation with a member of his extended family.

"My brother was getting married and my great-uncle - my mother's father's brother - was at the wedding, and him and I were talking about what I was doing currently," he recalled.

Garcia told his great-uncle he had been taking classes in Hebrew, a language he found was surprisingly easy for him to learn.

"I said, 'It's like we're Jews' and he said, 'Well, we are Jews," Garcia said.

"It took my breath away, I was completely perplexed."

Raised in the Catholic Church in Panama, Garcia's conversation with his great-uncle prompted him to begin looking into his family history.

"I asked my mother, 'Did you know we were Jewish?' and she said, 'That was a long time ago,'" Garcia said.

Through extensive research, Garcia learned his ancestors belonged to a Jewish community that fled Spain and Portugal during the Spanish Inquisition. They migrated to Central and South America, moving north through Mexico and into Texas. These Jews, known as Hispanic Sefardim, have remained hidden in Central and South America, Mexico and the Southwest United States for centuries.

"This group of individuals who had been persecuted by the Catholic Church since 1492 … had no other choice than to convert to Catholicism under penalty of death, so for the next 400 years the Catholic Church was persistently trying to weed out these individuals who were practicing Judaism in secret and make sure they had actually converted to Catholicism," Garcia said.

"They tenaciously held on to their Jewish roots, secretly telling one or two people in their families."

After discovering the truth about his family's past, Garcia and his wife decided to pursue Judaism and raise their son in a synagogue.

Several rabbis refused to accept Garcia as a Jew and insisted he go through the process of conversion.

"I just simply kept talking to different rabbis and I found one who was very open - a European rabbi who had grown up in Israel - he said, 'Oh, you're a Jew, you just need to learn about Judaism.'"

Garcia continued his journey in Judaism, eventually becoming ordained as a rabbi.

In 2004, he joined the Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies, hoping to help other Jews in their quest to re-establish a Jewish lifestyle after generations of hiding for fear of persecution. Realizing the need for an organization to help the hidden Jew - or crypto-Jew - re-assimilate to Jewish traditions, he helped launch the Association of Crypto-Jews of the Americas (ACJA) in 2004.

"We've been working with the Hispanic Sefardim now for five or six years helping them reintegrate into Jewish society and bridging the cultural gap between Hispanic traditions (and those who) now embrace Jewish heritage," Garcia said.

Currently living in Phoenix, Garcia will be traveling to Midland once or twice a month to offer synagogue services to the West Texas Jewish community.

Their Sunday school program, from 1-4 p.m., includes lessons in Jewish history, synagogue life, kosher laws and other topics. Avdey Torah Hayah also offers Sunday school for children, teaching them the Hebrew language and Jewish history.

Samuel Saldana, a Hispanic Sefardi who now serves as president of the Avdey Torah Hayah Synagogue, contacted Garcia and asked him to come to West Texas.

Like other crypto-Jewish families, Saldana said his family's Jewish roots were passed down through the generations.

"We've always been told but we really haven't been practicing (and) as time goes on you lose the traditions, you lose the language," he said.

"When I was about 25 years old, my brother and I decided that that was enough. We started keeping the Shabbat, learning the Torah. We got to the point where we needed a teacher, that's why we ended up contacting Rabbi Garcia.

"We've been waiting for him for 500 years."

As Garcia and Saldana explained, the experiences and needs of the Hispanic Sefardim often differ from those of other Jewish communities. The Hispanic Sephardim must learn to blend Jewish traditions and Hispanic traditions.

Often only a few people within a family will decide to break away from the Catholic Church and pursue a Jewish life, creating tension within a family unit. Coming from a crypto-Judaic background, Garcia feels he is equipped to relate to the struggles Hispanic Sefardim often face.

In his work with crypto-Jews, Garcia continues to meet resistance from some in the Jewish community.

"The question comes up in the Jewish community as to who is Jewish and who is not Jewish," Garcia explained, noting some rabbis object to crypto-Jews realigning with the Jewish community through a Certificate of Return rather than through conversion.

Garcia presents individuals with these certificates that vouch for the authenticity of a person's Jewish ancestry.

They are accepted by the Ministry of the Interior of Israel as proof of Judaism to join a synagogue and adopt a Jewish lifestyle. They are not accepted by Orthodox Judaism.

In order to obtain a Certificate of Return, a person must meet certain requirements such as attending a synagogue 70 percent of the time for one year, celebrating all of the Jewish holidays for one year, participating in Hebrew and Jewish history classes, and making arrangements to (re)marry in a Jewish ceremony, among others. An individual's Jewish ancestry must be reviewed by the Bet Din, a Jewish religious or civil court of law.

"Up until recently, nobody has really known how to deal with these Jews that come back," Garcia said of the resurgence of crypto-Jews and specifically Hispanic Sefardim over the past 20 years. "That has been the challenge in the Jewish community throughout the world.

"Our hope is that within a very short time, two or three generations, the Hispanic Sefardim that come back will be recognized not as crypto-Jews but just simply as Jews."

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For more information on Avdey Torah Hayah, call synagogue president Samuel Saldana at 634-9191 or visit www.cryptojew.org.